Daily Archives: July 12, 2016

financial independence / early retirement – reddit

Posted: July 12, 2016 at 5:33 am

This is a place for people who are or want to become Financially Independent (FI), which means not having to work for money.

Before proceeding further, please read the Rules & FAQ.

Financial Independence is closely related to the concept of Early Retirement/Retiring Early (RE) - quitting your job/career and pursuing other activities with your time. This subreddit deals primarily with Financial Independence, but additionally with some concepts around "RE".

At its core, FI/RE is about maximizing your savings rate (through less spending and/or higher income) to achieve FI and have the freedom to RE as fast as possible. The purpose of this subreddit is to discuss FI/RE strategies, techniques, and lifestyles no matter if you're retired or not, or how old you are.

FI/RE is about:

Discovering and achieving life goals: What would I do with my life if I didn't have to work for money?"

Simplifying and redesigning your lifestyle to reduce spending. Your wants and needs aren't written in stone, and less spending is powerful at any income level.

Working to increase your income and income streams with projects, side-gigs, and additional effort

Striving to save a large percentage (generally more than 50%) of your income to accelerate achieving FI

Investing to make your money work for you, and learning to manage/optimize those investments for the unique nature of FI/RE

Retiring Early

FI/RE is NOT about:

Gaining wealth for the purpose of excessive consumption

Taking the slow road, or the traditional road to retirement

Becoming financially independent requires hard work and a healthy attitude towards money, but also a degree of privilege. When participating on this subreddit, please be mindful of the ways in which you are lucky.

Please read the FAQ and Rules above, then feel free to share your journey or ask for advice!

Blogs

Forums

More to read

Tools

Books / Resources

Reddit resources

Closely related subs

Regional FI/RE

Regional Personal Finance

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financial independence / early retirement - reddit

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Alan Watt: The Neo-Eugenics War On Humanity Alex Jones …

Posted: at 5:33 am

Infowars.com October 22, 2010

Alan Watt continues to divulge his fascinating in-depth insights into how culture is created from the top down and used by the elite to manipulate and pervert natural human instincts towards their own ends. Every change in culture, right down to fashion and music, points out Watt citing Plato, had to be authorized and promoted from the top. This science of mass mind control is still taught today by the insiders and mediums such as television are used as weapons of social control to prevent humanity from ever realizing its full potential.

Watt talks about how the elite technocrats plan for the long term, in 50, 100 and even 150 year cycles in which to implement the different aspects of their agenda, and how each cultural shift was deliberately timed to be implemented at a certain time. The current cultural bombardment surrounds the emergence of neo-eugenics, with big foundations and organizations like the Optimum Population Trust pushing the idea that humans are superfluous, virus-like, and therefore worthless.

Watt discusses how sperm counts across Europe and America have dropped at an alarming rate of up to 80 per cent over the past 50 years, and how the medias complete ignorance of this crisis proves that it was authorized as a deliberate program of de-population. Watt traces the program back to its origins in the 1950s, where synthetic female hormones like estrogen were put in baby foods by companies like Proctor and Gamble, as well as baby milk bottles washed with Bisphenol A, the very substance that attacks male genitalia and prevents it from developing properly. Watt also outlines how Bisphenol A in womens cosmetic products contributes to toxifying their bodies, leading to an environment for male babies that leads them to have a reduced sperm count or even become sterile.The foundation of the agenda can be discovered in the writings of people like Bertrand Russell and the Huxley brothers, who talked about the need to sterilize the masses as far back as the 1930s.

Watt also divulges how the elites ultimate goal for every human allowed to be born is for them to serve the state and be deceived into accepting this enslavement as a natural form of existence. The elites greatest fear is that the inferiors will out-breed the superiors, which is why they continually push neo-eugenics and are obsessed with inter-breeding to keep their own genetics intellectually pure.

This one hour interview is part two to the previous Alan Watt feature video Shock And Awe The Manipulation Of The Human Psyche and we encourage all our subscribers to watch it now by visiting the video reports section at http://www.prisonplanet.tv not a subscriber or have let your subscription lapse? Please consider becoming a member at http://prisonplanet.tv/signup.html

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Microdosing: The Revolutionary Way of Using Psychedelics …

Posted: at 5:32 am

Microdosing of 10 to 20 micrograms (of LSD)allow me to increase my focus, open my heart, and achieve breakthrough results while remaining integrated within my routine. My wit, response time, and visual and mental acuity seem greater than normal on it.

Madeline, The Psychedelic Explorers Guide

On a beautiful morning in Amsterdam I grabbed my vial of LSD, diluted down with half high grade vodka and half distilled water, and told my friend to trust me and open his mouth. While semi-carefully measuring the droplets for his microdose, I told him to whirl it around in his mouth for a few minutes before swallowing the neuro-chemical concoction. I quickly followed suit.

We had one of the best walking conversation ofour lives.

I first became immenselycurious about the potential of microdosing psychedelics after reading this captivating storyabout James Fadiman and his research. After a few test-runs, I knew I stumbled upon something significant.

Today we arewitnessing the birth of a truly remarkable epoch. With the psychedelic renaissance well under way, consisting ofnew fascinating research, the coming out of thousands of individuals and the introduction of many, hitherto unknown, psychoactive plants steeped in their cultural context of healing and initiation, we are now facing some new and interesting questions.

I think one of the more fruitful directions we can take is towards is microdosing.

Microdosing is taking sub-perceptual doses (6-25 microgram LSD, 0.2-0.5 gram dried mushrooms, 50-75 microgram mescaline HCL) while keeping up with ones daily activities, engaging in extreme sports, appreciating nature or enhancing ones spiritual practice.

This manner of integrating psychedelics, also known as a psycholytic dose, doesnt inhibit ego-functioning in the same intense manner asthe heroic Terence McKennadose does. It is much easier integrated into non-psychedelic activities.

It is knownthat Albert Hofmann, the first synthesizer of LSD, continued this practice well into his old age while saying it would have gone on to be used as Ritalin if it hadnt been so harshly scheduled.

James Oroc, the author of the amazing book Tryptamine Palace: 5-MeO-DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad, while writing about the secret affair between psychedelics and extreme sports, saysthat taking psychedelics at lower doses, the cognitive functioning, emotional balance, and physical stamina were actually found to be improved.

For some, this might not come as a surprise, since Hofmann already spoke in a now famous interview that Lysergic acid diethyl amide (LSD) is related in chemical structure to nicotinic acid diethylamide, known to be an effective analeptic. (central nervous stimulant.)

But theres more, as James Oroc eloquently put,

Virtually all athletes who learn to use LSD at psycholytic dosages believe that the use of these compounds improves both their stamina and their abilities. According to the combined reports of 40 years of use by the extreme sports underground, LSD can increase your re- flex time to lightning speed, improve your balance to the point of perfection, increase your concentration until you experience tunnel vision, and make you impervious to weakness or pain. LSDs effects in these regards amongst the extreme-sport community are in fact legendary, universal, and without dispute.

He goes so far to suggest that, to some in the extreme sports subculture, taking a microdose at any physical competition is considered cheating. And this is not just the case for sports.P.G. Stafford and B.H. Golightly write in LSD The Problem-Solving Psychedelicabout a student that wanted to learn german making huge strides under the influenceof an unknown amount of LSD.These are the words of the student:

It was a week before registration and it depressed me tremendously that I had not spent the summer learning German, as I had planned. I had intended to give myself a crash course so I could take second-year German, which I needed for my study in physics. I had heard of a woman who had learned enough Spanish in a few days, via LSD, to speak it fluently when she had to go to Mexico on business.

I had taken LSD before, and while I couldnt see how she did this, I decided it was worth a try. I hadnt even gotten around to picking up a textbook, but I did have a close friend who knew German well and who said he was willing to sit in while I took the drug and try to teach me the language.

Fortunately, I knew something about conjugation and declension, so I wasnt completely at sea. I wanted to get worked up and feel involved with the language, as it seemed that this must be at least part of the key to the problem, so I asked my friend to tell me about Schiller and Goethe, and why the verb came at the end. Almost immediately, after just a story or two, I knew I had been missing a lot in ignoring the Germans, and I really got excited. The thing that impressed me at first was the delicacy of the language (he was now giving me some simple words and phrases), and though I really messed it up, I was trying hard to imitate his pronunciation as I had never tried to mimic anything before.

For most people German may be guttural, but for me it was light and lacey. Before long, I was catching on even to the umlauts. Things were speeding up like mad, and there were floods of associations. My friend had only to give me a German word, and almost immediately I knew what it was through cognates. It turned out that it wasnt even necessary for him to ask me what it sounded like.

Memory, of course, is a matter of association, and boy, was I ever linking up to things! I had no difficulty recalling words he had given mein fact, I was eager to string them together. In a couple of hours after that I was reading even some simple German, and it all made sense.

The whole experience was an explosion of discoveries. Normally, when youve been working on something for a long time and finally discover a solution, you get excited, and you can see implications everywhere. Much more than if you heard someone else discovering the same-thing. Now this discovery thing, thats what was happening with mebut all the time.

The threshold of understanding was extremely low, so that with every new phrase I felt I was making major discoveries. When I was reading, it was as though I had discovered the Rosetta Stone and the world was waiting for my translation. Really wild!

In the 60s the creativity enhancing effects of psychedelics were already hailed as revolutionary, and these famous tripperswould certainly agree. One significant study investigated the effect of 100 micrograms of LSD on top of the field experts who had been struggling with a hard problem for months. Their solutions were reviewed by a panel of other experts in the same field. As Tim Doody reports;

LSD absolutely had helped them solve their complex, seemingly intractable problems. And the establishment agreed. The 26 men unleashed a slew of widely embraced innovations shortly after their LSD experiences, including a mathematical theorem for NOR gate circuits, a conceptual model of a photon, a linear electron accelerator beam-steering device, a new design for the vibratory microtome, a technical improvement of the magnetic tape recorder, blueprints for a private residency and an arts-and-crafts shopping plaza,
and a space probe experiment designed to measure solar properties.

Psychedelics can be described as non-specific amplifiers, and, as such, not just creativity can be enhanced, also the distressing states of mind. In smaller doses this is not as overwhelming and therefore, if used properly, can be quite beneficial.

Myron Stolaroff, while writing about the usefulness of psychedelics in the practice of buddhism, argues that low doses of psychedelics can be extremely beneficial to improve ones meditation practice.

The use of low doses often can be much more effective in dealing with our psychic garbage. Many do not care for low doses because they can stir up uncomfortable feelings, and they prefer to transcend them by pushing on into higher states, but it is precisely these uncomfortable feelings that must be resolved to achieve true freedom.

With low doses, by focusing directly on the feelings and staying with them without aversion and without grasping, they will in time dissipate. Resolving ones repressed feelings in this manner clears the inner being, permitting the True Self to manifest more steadily. Such a result provides greater energy, deeper peace, more perceptive awareness, greater clarity, keener intuition, and greater compassion. It permits the deepening of ones meditation practice. The surfacing of buried feelings that this procedure permits often can bring new understanding of ones personality dynamics.

The potential to improve cognitive functioning, body awareness and our spiritual evolution with a microdose of psychedelics are limitless. There are five categories by which we can describe the overall effects of microdosing LSD. I gathered these from the various first person reports Ive quoted so far and my own extensive experimentation.

To be able to experiment with these states of conscious in a safe and constructive manner, be sure to follow these guidelines.

To make this trivial world sublime, take half a gram of phanerothyme -Huxley

In a not so far away future it will be possible to unlock different experiences with a pill. A little piece of matter, folded and turned using organic chemistry into a unique organic key to insert your brain. A drug you can buy as easy as alcohol or tobacco, or weed. Perhaps it will thrive in a system where one has to take an exam, some basic tests, and will be rewarded a license of some kind.

Aldous Huxley envisionedin Island,his last, and according to himself, his most important book, that psychedelics could help us overcome addiction, anxiety and depression. That if we could change how we experience ourselves, our loved ones and the world at large, either through rituals or through neurochemical mediated ways, we could usher in a new paradigm of human flourishing.

While his vision has not come to fruition yet, it is still very much alive. With the practice of microdosing, we will be one step closer to learning how to cope with the vast depths of our own psyches.

Enjoy the magic, my friends.

Share your microdose experience here

Ive gotten so many questions, requests and microdose stories after writing this article that I have decided to write an e-book on this fascinating subject matter. If youd like to help, I am looking for:

All information received will be used anonymously. Please enter Microdosing as the subject. Thank you 🙂

As we repeatedly stress on HighExistence, psychedelics mustbe approached with reverence and caution. We believe that in a loving context, psychedelics are powerful medicines with tremendous potential, but there are a number of physical and psychological safety concerns that one should consider before journeying with psychedelics. Please, please do plenty of research, and do not take psychedelics if you have reason to believe that they will not jibe with your personality or particular mental baggage.The Essential Psychedelic Guideon Erowid is an exceptional free resource, and we recommend reading it,especiallythe section on Psychedelic Safety, before ever dabbling in these substances. Take care, and happy tripping. : )

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Political Correctness = Language and Thought Control – The …

Posted: at 5:31 am

Political correctness is a Rothschild invention of language control. Like Orwellian Newspeak in 1984, its ultimateaim is to reduce the scope of free thought.

And language control is thought control. Period. The rise of modern political correctness (PC) is a great example of the cunning way in which social engineers such as the New World Order manipulators operate.Political correctness is soft censorship.It is intolerance disguised as tolerance. As George Carlin said, it is fascism pretending to be manners. It is running amok not just in Universities but now almost everywhere in society. Just as Orwell laid out so precisely in 1984, political correctness is the Newspeak which is threatening tolimit our ability to freely speak and think, by reducing the number of available words in our vocabulary.

Truth is stranger than fiction. When you look at the twisted contortions the PC crowd is insisting people go through to rid their language of anything offensive, it has entered the theater of the absurd. Political correctnessdictates what you can and cant say, based on how offensive aword is. Right off the bat there are severalproblems with this. Firstly, who are the commissars,officials or authorities who are granting themselves massive power by getting to decide what ranks as offensive? Secondly, since when did feeling offended or having your feelings hurt become such an important issue that it legally justifies restricting everyones freedom? Last time I checked, freedom of speech was a genuine and legitimate human right (enshrined in the legal documents of many countries), whereas the right to not feel offended is imaginary and non-existent.

The illusory right to feel offended a great way to shame people into feeling guilty for no good reason.

Thirdly and most importantly just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so too is feeling offended in the realm of thebeholder. Words are words; each person is in charge of their own emotions; choose to ignore, respond or react to words how you want, but dont blame someone else for your emotional state. You are in control of your own state of consciousness. To blame someone else because you feel angry, offended or upsetshows an abandonment of responsibility and an utter lack of emotional and spiritual maturity.Since when did we humans become such crybabies that wecouldnt stand hearing or being called a word, a name, a label or a phrase? Grow up, please!

As always, theres more to the story here.Political correctness has roots in marxism and communism. Wikipedia notes that In the early-to-mid 20th century, the phrase politically correct was associated with thedogmaticapplication ofStalinistdoctrine, debated betweenCommunistParty members andSocialists. However, it goes back further to theFrankfurt School (Institute for Social Research) in Germany, which was set up in 1923. TheFrankfurt school was a think tank for social engineering, aiming tospread collectivism (or its offshoots of socialism, marxism and communism) around the world. Asthis article from the Schiller Institute states:

The task of the Frankfurt School, then, was first, to undermine the Judeo-Christian legacy through an abolition of culture (Aufhebung der Kulturin Lukacs German); and, second, to determine new cultural forms which wouldincrease the alienation of the population,thus creating a new barbarism.

It goes on to point out those funding the Frankfurt School:

although the Institute for Social Research started with Comintern [CommunismInternational] support, over the next three decades its sources of funds included various German and American universities, the Rockefeller Foundation, Columbia Broadcasting System, the American Jewish Committee, several American intelligence services, the Office of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany, the International Labour Organization, and the Hacker Institute, a posh psychiatric clinic in Beverly Hills.

Sowe have reference to the Rockefellers funding the Frankfurt School, and it is well known that the Rothschilds funded the rise of marxism:

Nathan Rothschild had given Marx two checks for several thousand pounds to finance the cause of Socialism. The checks were put on display in the British Museum, after Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild, a trustee, had willed his museum and library to them.

Both of these key New World Order families are thus implicated in marxism, the Frankfurt School and political correctness. Interestingly, many researches have pointed out that political correctness is part of a broader movement of cultural marxism,which is the subversion of a countrys culture with collectivist ideology, as opposed to the more direct political version.

Yuri Bezmenov, a former SovietKGB agent, said that ideological subversion would change the perception of reality of every American. He outlined how there was a slow brainwashing process taking place to change the individualistic culture of the West, consisting of:

1. Demoralization (covert, 15-50 years) (basically completed);

2. Destabilization (overt, 2-5 years);

3. Crisis (6 weeks);

4. Violent Change and Normalization (can take years, goes on forever).

All this was with the aim of making the West collectivist. The question is: how much has it worked?

Political correctness vs free speech (1st amendment): who will win?

Whatever good intentions political correctness may have had in trying to stop homophobia, racism, sexism and discrimination of any kind, it has long passed the threshold of absurdity. Consider the following examples of what the PC crowd is trying to make people say with their bias-free language:

seniors, elders, elderly => people of advanced age

overweight, obese => people of size

rich => people of material wealth

American => US citizen

This last one is especially interesting, given that the US Government is a corporation which lays claim to the entire United States of America, whereas American denotes a natural-born individual of the Republic. The PC police also want to eliminate the following words:

male, female, father, mother, too, hard worker, third world,crazy, insane, retarded, gay, tyranny, gypped, illegal alien, fag, ghetto, raghead

and phrases such as I want to die and that test raped me.

Donald Trump recently got heckled for using the termanchor baby by a PC journalist, who wanted him to say the American born child of an undocumented immigrant. What a mouthful. Funnily, enough that PC journalist was breaking his own inane rules, since now were been told that American is disallowed.Remember theban bossy campaign? Grown adults indulging in utter stupidity. More political correctness and languagecontrol. How can you ban a word anyway?

Even Mr. Nonsense makes far more sense than political correctness.

Its not just specific words or phrases that the PC crowd want to obliterate. At some universities, they are banning entire ways of behaving. Check out these ridiculous university rules (taken from the book Choosing the Right College2012-2013), which have moved beyond speech control into total behavior control:

Brown University: banned any speech making people feel angry, impotent and disenfranchised

Colby College: banned any speech leading to loss of self esteem

Bryn Mawr College: banned suggestive looks

Haverford College: banned unwelcome flirtation

University of Connecticut: banne
d inappropriate laughter

West Virginia University: banned theuse of words boyfriend or girlfriend but instead told students they haveto use the words lover or partner.

Look what the Grand Valley State University recommends we do to allegedly remove bias from our language:

Avoiding Racism and Ageism

Mention a persons race or age only if it is relevant to the story. Biased: A strange Black man spoke to me at the grocery store. Better: A strange man spoke to me at the grocery store.

Disability and Disease

Focus on people rather than conditions. Biased: I met an epileptic on the bus today. Better: I met a person with epilepsy on the bus today.

Since when is becoming less descriptive equivalent to less discriminatory?Talk about a perversion of straight and ordinary speech! Political correctness is standing reality on its head. Here is a chilling quote from 1984:

You havent a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston, he said almost sadlyIn your heart youd prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You dont grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?

Dont you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it

All words are potentially offensive. Everywordcould potentially be associated with something bad, so every wordcould come under the scrutiny of the PCpolice.Slurs, insults and derogatory language have always existed ever since humans could speak. You cant just annihilate them. Even the concepts ofmicroaggression andhate speech are failed notions, trying to make havingyour feelings hurt or getting offended morally orlegally equivalentwith harassment. There is no equivalence! Stick and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me

A message just in for those pushing political correctness and thought control. Please fuck off and I mean that in the most respectful of ways, because I certainly wouldnt want to offend anyone

I encourage anyone whohas even a mild interest in a free humanity with complete freedom of speech, and total freedom of thought, to resist political correctness with every fiber of your being.If you are concerned about hurting peoples feelings unnecessarily, you can always find ways to express something in the right way. In those kind of situations, what really matters is the way you say words, not what you say.

We dont need speech police to tell us what we can and cant say or can and cant think. We dont need to go through convoluted verbal gymnastics and masturbation just to say what we think or express ourselves.

Its time for those hiding behind feeling offended to grow up. Stop demanding those around you change because of your lack of maturity. Stop trying to hijack everyones else freedom because of your timidity. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, offense in the mind, attitude and reaction of the beholder.

Itstime to call a spade a spade. We need the spirit of straight talking. Weneed the courage to speak truth to power, not to go in the opposite direction and become afraid of saying anything.The real agenda of political correctness is to stifle objective investigation and free speech. Ultimately, it is to eliminate criticism of the NWO manipulatorsunder the guise of stopping hate speech and making everything fair and equal.

*****

Want the latest commentaryand analysis on Conspiracy, Natural Health, Sovereignty, Consciousness and more? Sign up forfree blog updates!

Makia Freeman is the editor ofThe Freedom Articlesand senior researcher atToolsForFreedom.com(FaceBookhere), writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the worldwideconspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness

http://www.schillerinstitute.org/fid_91-96/921_frankfurt.html

http://antinewworldorder.blogspot.com/2007/10/who-was-karl-marx.html

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMl4kIxw-jo

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAYQ-rfj1CI

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyOxQJNC2Us

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dynbzMlCcw

https://www.gvsu.edu/cms3/assets/C7078FCF-E2C3-F3DD-7F8E1630561E3F3E/bias-free_language.pdf

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Political Correctness = Language and Thought Control - The ...

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Political Correctness = Language and Thought Control …

Posted: at 5:31 am

Makia Freeman, Contributor Waking Times

Political correctness is a Rothschild invention of language control. Like Orwellian Newspeak in 1984, its ultimateaim is to reduce the scope of free thought.

Political correctness is language control. And language control is thought control. Period. The rise of modern political correctness (PC) is a great example of the cunning way in which social engineers such as the New World Order manipulators operate.Political correctness is soft censorship.It is intolerance disguised as tolerance. As George Carlin said, it is fascism pretending to be manners. It is running amok not just in Universities but now almost everywhere in society. Just as Orwell laid out so precisely in 1984,political correctness is the Newspeakwhich is threatening tolimit our ability to freely speak and think, by reducing the number of available words in our vocabulary.

Truth is stranger than fiction. When you look at the twisted contortions the PC crowd is insisting people go through to rid their language of anything offensive, it has entered the theater of the absurd. Political correctnessdictates what you can and cant say, based on how offensive aword is. Right off the bat there are severalproblems with this. Firstly, who are the commissars,officials or authorities who are granting themselves massive power by getting to decide what ranks as offensive? Secondly, since when did feeling offended or having your feelings hurt become such an important issue that it legally justifies restricting everyones freedom? Last time I checked, freedom of speech was a genuine and legitimate human right (enshrined in the legal documents of many countries), whereas the right to not feel offended is imaginary and non-existent.

As always, theres more to the story here.Political correctness has roots in marxism and communism. Wikipedia notes that In the early-to-mid 20th century, the phrase politically correct was associated with thedogmaticapplication ofStalinistdoctrine, debated betweenCommunistParty members andSocialists. However, it goes back further to theFrankfurt School (Institute for Social Research) in Germany, which was set up in 1923. TheFrankfurt school was a think tank for social engineering, aiming tospread collectivism (or its offshoots of socialism, marxism and communism) around the world. Asthis article from theSchiller Institute states:

The task of the Frankfurt School, then, was first, to undermine the Judeo-Christian legacy through an abolition of culture (Aufhebung der Kulturin Lukacs German); and, second, to determine new cultural forms which wouldincrease the alienation of the population,thus creating a new barbarism.

It goes on to point out those funding the Frankfurt School:

although the Institute for Social Research started with Comintern [CommunismInternational] support, over the next three decades its sources of funds included various German and American universities, the Rockefeller Foundation, Columbia Broadcasting System, the American Jewish Committee, several American intelligence services, the Office of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany, the International Labour Organization, and the Hacker Institute, a posh psychiatric clinic in Beverly Hills.

Sowe have reference to the Rockefellers funding the Frankfurt School, and it is well known that the Rothschilds funded the rise of Marxism:

Nathan Rothschild had given Marx two checks for several thousand pounds to finance the cause of Socialism. The checks were put on display in the British Museum, after Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild, a trustee, had willed his museum and library to them.

Both of these key New World Order families are thus implicated in marxism, the Frankfurt School and political correctness. Interestingly, many researches have pointed out that political correctness is part of a broader movement ofcultural marxism,which is the subversion of a countrys culture with collectivist ideology, as opposed to the more direct political version.

Yuri Bezmenov, a former SovietKGB agent, said that ideological subversion would change the perception of reality of every American. He outlined how there was a slow brainwashing process taking place to change the individualistic culture of the West, consisting of:

1. Demoralization (covert, 15-50 years) (basically completed);

2. Destabilization (overt, 2-5 years);

3. Crisis (6 weeks);

4. Violent Change and Normalization (can take years, goes on forever).

All this was with the aim of making the West collectivist. The question is: how much has it worked?

Whatever good intentions political correctness may have had in trying to stop homophobia, racism, sexism and discrimination of any kind, it is long passed the threshold of absurdity. Consider the following examples of what the PC crowd is trying to make people say with their bias-free language:

seniors, elders, elderly => people of advanced age

overweight, obese => people of size

rich => people of material wealth

American => US citizen

This last one is especially interesting, given that the US Government is a corporation which lays claim to the entire United States of America, whereas American denotes a natural-born individual of the Republic. The PC police also want to eliminate the following words:

male, female, father, mother, too, hard worker, third world,crazy, insane, retarded, gay, tyranny, gypped, illegal alien, fag, ghetto, raghead

and phrases such as I want to die and that test raped me.

Donald Trump recently got heckled for using the termanchor baby by a PC journalist, who wanted him to say the American born child of an undocumented immigrant. What a mouthful. Funnily, enough that PC journalist was breaking his own inane rules, since now were been told that American is disallowed.Remember theban bossy campaign? Grown adults indulging in utter stupidity. More political correctness and languagecontrol. How can you ban a word anyway?

Its not just specific words or phrases that the PC crowd want to obliterate. At some universities, they are banning entire ways ofbehaving. Check out these ridiculous university rules (taken from the book Choosing the Right College2012-2013), which have moved beyond speech control into total behavior control:

Brown University: banned any speech making people feel angry, impotent and disenfranchised

Colby College: banned any speech leading to loss of self esteem

Bryn Mawr College: banned suggestive looks

Haverford College: banned unwelcome flirtation

University of Connecticut: banned inappropriate laughter

West Virginia University: banned theuse of words boyfriend or girlfriend but instead told students they haveto use the words lover or partner.

Look what the Grand Valley State University recommends we do:

Avoiding Racism and Ageism

Mention a persons race or age only if it is relevant to the story. Biased: A strange Black man spoke to me at the grocery store. Better: A strange man spoke to me at the grocery store.

Disability and Disease

Focus on people rather than conditions. Biased: I met an epileptic on the bus today. Better: I met a person with epilepsy on the bus today.

Since when is becoming less descriptive equivalent to less discriminatory?Talk about a perversion of straight and ordinary speech! Political correctness is standing reality
on its head. Here is a chilling quote from 1984:

You havent a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston, he said almost sadlyIn your heart youd prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You dont grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?

Dont you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it

All words are potentially offensive. Everywordcould potentially be associated with something bad, so every wordcould come under the scrutiny of the PCpolice.Slurs, insults and derogatory language have always existed ever since humans could speak. You cant just annihilate them. Even the concepts ofmicroaggression andhate speech are failed notions, trying to make havingyour feelings hurt or getting offended morally orlegally equivalentwith harassment. There is no equivalence! Stick and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me

I encourage anyone whohas even a mild interest in a free humanity with complete freedom of speech, and total freedom of thought, to resist political correctness with every fiber of your being.If you are concerned about hurting peoples feelings unnecessarily, you can always find ways to express something in the right way. In those kind of situations, what really matters is the way you say words, not what you say.

We dont need speech police to tell us what we can and cant say or can and cant think. We dont need to go through convoluted verbal gymnastics and masturbation just to say what we think or express ourselves.

Its time for those hiding behind feeling offended to grow up. Stop demanding those around you change because of your lack of maturity. Stop trying to hijack everyones else freedom because of your timidity. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, offense in the mind, attitude and reaction of the beholder.

Itstime to call a spade a spade. We need the spirit of straight talking. Weneed the courage to speak truth to power, not to go in the opposite direction and become afraid of saying anything.The real agenda of political correctness is to stifle objective investigation and free speech. Ultimately, it is to eliminate criticism of the NWO manipulatorsunder the guise of stopping hate speech and making everything fair and equal.

Makia Freeman is the editor ofThe Freedom Articlesand senior researcher atToolsForFreedom.com(FaceBookhere), writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the worldwideconspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance

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Complementary and alternative medicine – Mayo Clinic

Posted: at 5:30 am

Complementary and alternative medicine

What's considered an alternative therapy is a moving target. Get the facts about what CAM means and its changing role in health care.

Complementary and alternative medicine has never been more popular. Nearly 40 percent of adults report using complementary and alternative medicine, also called CAM for short. Doctors are embracing CAM therapies, too, often combining them with mainstream medical therapies spawning the term "integrative medicine."

Exactly what's considered alternative medicine changes constantly as treatments undergo testing and move into the mainstream. To make sense of the many therapies available, it helps to look at how they're classified by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM):

Keep in mind that the distinctions between therapies aren't always clear-cut, and some systems use techniques from more than one category.

A system isn't just a single practice or remedy such as massage but many practices that center on a philosophy, such as the power of nature or the presence of energy in your body. Examples of whole medical systems include:

Mind-body techniques strengthen the communication between your mind and your body. CAM practitioners say these two systems must be in harmony for you to stay healthy. Examples of mind-body connection techniques include meditation, prayer, relaxation and art therapies.

Examples include dietary supplements and herbal remedies. These treatments use ingredients found in nature. Examples of herbs include ginseng, ginkgo and echinacea; examples of other dietary supplements include selenium, glucosamine sulfate and SAMe. Herbs and supplements can be taken as teas, oils, syrups, powders, tablets or capsules.

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TZM – Mission Statement – The Zeitgeist Movement

Posted: at 5:29 am

As of June 2016, The Zeitgeist Movement has formed an official 501c3 non-profit, tax exempt entity to help administration. As has been suggested for years, this new aspect of TZM has been created to assist core administrative tasks and costs, allowing for greater project development. See Intro Video

The 8th Annual Global 'Zeitgeist Day' Symposium Promotes Sustainability, Global Unity, and a Post-Scarcity Society

The 2016 event, featuring prominent speakers and guests from around the world, will be held in Athens, Greece on Saturday, March 26th, 2016

Press Release

June 2015 "Zeitgeist founder, Peter Joseph, joins Jesse Ventura to discuss the concept of a resource-based economy. With all of Earths resources in decline, it is time to scientifically manage the ones we have left. In this brand new episode of Off the Grid, Peter Joseph talks about the benefits of moving away from a market economy toward one that is based on resource management." Watch Now

The Zeitgeist Movement Education project is now live! The aim of the project is for every chapter of TZM to initially try to go into just one school or university to promote/discuss sustainable values and practices with the next generation.

To find out more and to get involved in the project please visit the website at http://www.tzmeducation.org

http://www.tzmeducation.org

Great activist tool. This 2 DVD set contains the talks from The Zeitgeist Movement's flagship awareness event known as "Zeitgeist Day" (aka Zday). This DVD Set is from the 5th annual Main Event that was held in Los Angeles, CA on March 17th, 2013. 12 Lectures in 6 Hours. Go Here

The Zeitgeist Movement's new Orientation Guide "The Zeitgeist Movement Defined" has been released.

Read Book

THANK YOU FOR THE GREAT 2014 EVENTS!

Uniting the world through the power of art, the Zeitgeist Media Festival is back for its fourth annual main event. Occurring at The Federal in North Hollywood, Saturday, October 4th, 2014 from 6pm-11pm, this not-for-profit activist arts festival features live music, comedy, short films, spoken word and more.

More Info/Press Kit

3rd Annual News Coverage

WATCH INTERVIEW

Peter Joseph exclusive interview with Abby Martin of "Breaking The Set" on Russia Today.

Economic Calculation in a Natural Law/Resource-Based Economy, Nov. 12th 2013

Watch Video

Thank you TZM Germany for a great event.

Published on Mar 14, 2013 "This week, Cenk Uygur sits down with Peter Joseph, founder of the Zeitgeist movement. The Zeitgeist movement's goal is to create global sustainability by changing established social systems. Can people save the world by changing socially? Is the market economy responsible for corruption, and is it serving its original purpose? Does the market economy leave room for true freewill, and is it truly possible to shed ourselves of material goods?

Free TZM Global Show Archives: Free Archive

Huge Thanks to our dedicated Chapters Coordinators for this helpful contribution!

OFFICIAL TZM CHAPTERS WEBSITE

NEW CHAPTERS GUIDE

Founded in 2008, The Zeitgeist Movement is a sustainability advocacy organization, which conducts community based activism and awareness actions through a network of global/regional chapters, project teams, annual events, media and charity work.

The movement's principle focus includes the recognition that the majority of the social problems that plague the human species at this time are not the sole result of some institutional corruption, absolute scarcity, a political policy, a flaw of "human nature" or other commonly held assumptions of causality. Rather, the movement recognizes that issues such as poverty, corruption, pollution, homelessness, war, starvation and the like appear to be "symptoms" born out of an outdated social structure.

While intermediate reform steps and temporal community support are of interest to the movement, the defining goal is the installation of a new socioeconomic model based upon technically responsible resource management, allocation and design through what would be considered the scientific method of reasoning problems and finding optimized solutions.

This Natural Law/Resource-Based Economy" (NLRBE) is about taking a direct technical approach to social management as opposed to a monetary or even political one. It is about updating the workings of society to the most advanced and proven methods known, leaving behind the damaging consequences and limiting inhibitions which are generated by our current system of monetary exchange, profit, business and other structural and motivational issues.

The movement is loyal to a train of thought, not figures or institutions. The view held is that through the use of socially targeted research and tested understandings in science and technology, we are now able to logically arrive at societal applications that could be profoundly more effective in meeting the needs of the human population, increasing public health. There is little reason to assume war, poverty, most crime and many other monetarily-based scarcity effects common in our current model cannot be resolved over time. The range of the movement's activism and awareness campaigns extend from short to long term, with methods based explicitly on non-violent methods of communication.

The Zeitgeist Movement has no allegiance to any country or traditional political platforms. It views the world as a single system and the human species as a single family and recognizes that all countries must disarm and learn to share resources and ideas if we expect to survive in the long run. Hence, the solutions arrived at and promoted are in the interest to help everyone on Earth, not a select group.

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Is Atheism a religion? – creation.com

Posted: at 5:28 am

by Daniel Smartt

Would Richard Dawkins ever acknowledge that his rabid atheism is actually a religious view?

Atheism is the belief that there is no god. According to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Buddhism is atheistic in the sense of denying that there is any overarching deity such as the Creator-God of the Bible. Atheism in the western sense excludes Buddhism, and adherents claim that it is not a religion. One Atheist said:

However, atheists make such claims so Atheism can avoid legal imperatives placed on religions in many countries, and can avoid some of the ideological hang-ups people have about religion. It also creates a false dichotomy between science (which they claim must be naturalistic and secular) and religion.

Atheism3 will be defined in the contemporary western sense: not just the lack of belief in a god, but the assertion about the non-existence of any gods, spirits, or divine or supernatural beings. Atheists in this sense are metaphysical naturalists, and as will be shown, they DO follow a religion.

Atheism creates a false dichotomy between science (which they claim must be naturalistic and secular) and religion.

Religion is a difficult thing to define. Various definitions have been proposed, many of which emphasize a belief in the supernatural.4 But such definitions break down on closer inspection for several reasons. They fail to deal with religions which worship non-supernatural things in their own right (for example Jainism, which holds that every living thing is sacred because it is alive, or the Mayans who worshiped the sun as a deity in and of itself rather than a deity associated with the sun)5; they fail to include religions such as Confucianism and Taoism which focus almost exclusively on how adherents should live, and the little they do say about supernatural issues such as the existence of an afterlife is very vague; they also dont deal with religious movements centred around UFOswhich believe that aliens are highly (evolutionarily) advanced (but not supernatural) beings.

A better way to determine whether a worldview is a religion is to look for certain characteristics that religions have in common. The framework set forth by Ninian Smart,6 commonly known as the Seven Dimensions of Religion, is widely accepted by anthropologists and researchers of religion as broadly covering the various aspects of religion, without focusing on things unique to specific religions.

The seven dimensions proposed by Smart are narrative, experiential, social, ethical, doctrinal, ritual and material. Not every religion has every dimension, nor are they all equally important within an individual religion. Smart even argues that the secularisation of western society is actually a shift of focus from the doctrinal and ritual to the experiential.

Every religion has its stories. Almost all religions have stories explaining where the universe came from and what humanitys part in it is. Smart calls this Narrative.

Narrative is a particularly important aspect of western Atheism. As the prominent Atheist Richard Dawkins said, referring to Charles Darwins theory of evolution:

Evolution is an explanation of where everything came from: the cosmos (came out of nothing at the big bangnothing exploded and became everything); humans evolved from non-human creatures, hence humanitys place in the cosmos is being just another species of animal. Some have gone so far as to say that humanity is a parasite on earth, and advocate killing up to 90% of humanity.8 There are some who attempt to combine belief in God with belief in evolution, not realizing the foundational nature of evolutions connection to Atheism.9 The testimony of those who after learning about evolution in science reject Christianity should alert church leaders to the incompatibility between evolution and the Gospel.

There are two aspects to the experiential dimension. The first is the events experienced before someone founded a religion (for example the Disciples physically saw and touched the bodily resurrected Jesus). It is often asserted that Charles Darwin, after observing evidence from around the world during his voyage on HMS Beagle, developed the theory of evolution. (In reality, he had already learned a version of evolution from his grandfather Erasmuss book Zoonomia and similar ideas were around at the time).

According to the Humanist Manifesto II, the only meaning in life is what the person gives it.

The second aspect of the experiential dimension concerns the experiences of latter adherents. Many people feel certain emotions when they participate in certain religious ceremonies. Atheists often believe that Atheism is freedom from religion, and some Atheists have reported feeling liberated after converting.10 Karl Marx said that the removal of the illusion of happiness by the removal of religion was a step towards true happiness. Atheistic denial of the divine entails denial of an afterlife. If there is no afterlife,11 then ultimately there is no higher purpose in life for Atheists than to be happy. According to the Humanist Manifesto II, the only meaning in life is what the person gives it. In the Humanist Manifesto III, this was changed to finding meaning in relationships. Belief in evolution also causes people to aim for self preservation and to spread their own genes.12

Smart also seems to include faith as part of the experiential dimension. The meaning of the word faith is often twisted to make it mean things it does not. In Christianity, faith is logical, being defined in Hebrews 11:1 as being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is not blindly believing the impossible (which is how many Atheists define faith), but rather trusting the promises of God, whose past promises have all been fulfilled. I would classify Christian faith as part of the doctrinal dimension rather than experiential. On the other hand, Atheism requires faith (using their own definition) that the laws of chemistry, physics and biology were once violated and life arose from non-life via chemical evolution.

The social dimension of religion looks at the hierarchies and power structures present within the religion, such the Hindu caste system. In missionary religions, it also includes how people get converted and how missionaries go about their work.

Contemporary Atheism has been fueled largely by authors promoting their Atheistic beliefs. In the preface to The God Delusion, Dawkins says,

Dawkins is saying he hopes that his book converts religious people to his worldviewexactly what a missionary of any religion hopes to do.

Communist countries often made the state religion Atheism, often to the point of persecuting (other) religions.13 This followed from Karl Marxs statement:

Marxists saw the removal of religion as a step toward true happiness for the common people, although in practice this did not occur, and contemporary critics see Marxism itself as a religion15. (I would contend that Marxism is a sect of a larger religion: Atheism).

Many scientists are high up on the social hierarchy of Atheism because their research enhances their understanding of the world. Particularly honoured are those scientists who write extensively about evolution. Because of this, many scientists include a little about evolution in their research papers, even when there is little or no relevance (one recent example concerns research into the chameleons catapult tongue and suction cap; see Created, not evo
lved)

Atheism is also taught to children in many schools in science classes as evolution. As atheistic philosopher Michael Ruse admits, evolution is a religion, and it could be considered the narrative dimension of Atheism. Thus teaching evolution is teaching Atheism. Several Atheists even support teaching lies, as long as the end result is more children believing evolution.16

Doctrines are the beliefs and philosophies that develop out of a religion (not necessarily being specifically stated in the religious narratives, etc). For example, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, while not directly stated in the Bible, is logically derived from it.

Contemporary Atheism gained popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries, after the enlightenment. In 1933, some prominent Atheist philosophers realised the effects the lack of a belief in a god would have on the morals of society and wrote what they believed would be a suitable set of beliefs and goals for a secular society in the 20th century. In doing so, they formed the branch of Atheism known as Secular Humanism. By and large, Atheists believe and adhere to the things written in the Humanist Manifesto, even if they dont know the specifics of the document. After all, many Atheists do want to do what is good.

The doctrines, ethics and goals outlined in the Humanist Manifesto, while being atheistic and accepting evolution as true, are opposite of what would be expected if they were solely derived from the evolutionary narrative. This is because Humanism also makes the assumption that humans are basically good.

In 1973 however, the Humanist Manifesto was updated because of the atrocities that humans inflicted upon other humans during the intervening years (specifically mentioned are Nazism and communist police states).

Atheism is a morally relativist religion. Most Atheists adhere to one ethical system or another, but in Atheism there is ultimately no foundation for morality, as atheists Dawkins and Provine admit. Many systems of ethics have been proposed; utilitarianism is probably the most popular one.

Some people have taken a further step by creating ethical systems based on the evolutionary narrative and the principle of survival of the fittest. People who have lived by such principles include the perpetrators of the Columbine Massacre, the Jokela School Shooting in Finland, and on a much larger scale, the Nazis.

Most people (Atheist or not) inherently know that systems that lead to such atrocities must be wrong, but Atheists cannot give a logical reason for why it is wrong. This contradiction was highlighted by Dawkins when he said Im a passionate Darwinian when it comes to science, when it comes to explaining the world, but Im a passionate anti-Darwinian when it comes to morality and politics. It was also graphically shown when two evolutionists wrote a book claiming that rape is an evolutionary mechanism to spread male genesand see how one of them squirmed to justify why he agreed that rape is objectively wrong under his philosophy.

A world governed purely by Atheistic, evolutionary ethics has been shown by history to be a horrible place to live. Most Atheists recognise this and choose to live by the ethical systems of other religions instead, or at the very least, live by the laws enforced by the government.

Ritual is the only dimension which on the surface might appear to be absent from the religion of Atheism. In some religions, rituals have meanings attached to them, such as Passover commemorating the Israelites escape from Egypt. Because Atheism is a relatively recent movement, it doesnt have much of a history to commemorate. In other religions, rituals such as sacrifices and dances are done to appease the gods or the spirits. Because Atheism denies the existence of gods and spirits, it doesnt have the second type of ritual either. Many Atheists do practice secular rituals such as their birthday celebrations, or the ritual holidays of other religions such as the Christmas and Easter public holidays of Christianity, but this is usually to simply maintain the tradition of a public holiday, and the original meaning of the celebrations are rejected. Its noteworthy that in recent years, the atheists public commemoration of the anniversary of Darwins birth each February (and even of the publication of his Origin of Species in November), along with calls for the general public to do the same, is rapidly becoming something of an annual ritual, even in some churches. One might even say that this modern Atheistic commemoration is being celebrated with greater fervour and passion than many longstanding religious rituals.

While Atheism by its nature of denying the divine cant have objects that represent the divine (such as icons or idols), nature is treated as sacred by some Atheists in and of itself.

The material dimension of religion, says Smart, includes all the physical things created by a religion such as art and buildings, and also natural features and places treated as sacred by adherents. While Atheism by its nature of denying the divine cant have objects that represent the divine (such as icons or idols), nature is treated as sacred by some Atheists in and of itself.

There are two extremes in the range of ideas held by Atheists on the material:

Both ideas can be derived from the evolutionary narrative, but views tending towards the second idea are more prevalent than the views tending towards the first. But as G.K. Chesterton said a century ago:

An Atheists view of the material dimension is strongly influenced by their view of the ethical dimension.

Atheists often claim that their belief is not a religion. This allows them to propagate their beliefs in settings where other religions are banned, but this should not be so.

Contemporary Western Atheism unquestionably has six of the seven dimensions of religion set forth by Smart, and the remaining dimension, ritual, has also started to develop. Thus its fallacious to assert, Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair colour. Perhaps a better analogy would be calling a shaved head a hairstyle. Other than the denial of the divine, there is little difference between Atheism and other worldviews typically labelled as religions.

The dichotomy that Atheists try to create between science and religion is false. The conflict is between interpretations of science coming from different religious worldviews.

Atheism shouldnt be taught or enforced in settings where other religions are banned and shouldnt be favoured by laws which imply a religiously neutral government.

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North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) | Britannica.com

Posted: at 5:27 am

Alternative title: NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), military alliance established by the North Atlantic Treaty (also called the Washington Treaty) of April 4, 1949, which sought to create a counterweight to Soviet armies stationed in central and eastern Europe after World War II. Its original members were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Joining the original signatories were Greece and Turkey (1952); West Germany (1955; from 1990 as Germany); Spain (1982); the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland (1999); Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia (2004); and Albania and Croatia (2009). France withdrew from the integrated military command of NATO in 1966 but remained a member of the organization; it resumed its position in NATOs military command in 2009.

The heart of NATO is expressed in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, in which the signatory members agree that

an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all; and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time in 2001, after terrorist attacks organized by exiled Saudi Arabian millionaire Osama bin Laden destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City and part of the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., killing some 3,000 people.

Article 6 defines the geographic scope of the treaty as covering an armed attack on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America. Other articles commit the allies to strengthening their democratic institutions, to building their collective military capability, to consulting each other, and to remaining open to inviting other European states to join.

Barkley, Alben W.: North Atlantic Treaty signingEncyclopdia Britannica, Inc.After World War II in 1945, western Europe was economically exhausted and militarily weak (the western Allies had rapidly and drastically reduced their armies at the end of the war), and newly powerful communist parties had arisen in France and Italy. By contrast, the Soviet Union had emerged from the war with its armies dominating all the states of central and eastern Europe, and by 1948 communists under Moscows sponsorship had consolidated their control of the governments of those countries and suppressed all noncommunist political activity. What became known as the Iron Curtain, a term popularized by Winston Churchill, had descended over central and eastern Europe. Further, wartime cooperation between the western Allies and the Soviets had completely broken down. Each side was organizing its own sector of occupied Germany, so that two German states would emerge, a democratic one in the west and a communist one in the east.

In 1948 the United States launched the Marshall Plan, which infused massive amounts of economic aid to the countries of western and southern Europe on the condition that they cooperate with each other and engage in joint planning to hasten their mutual recovery. As for military recovery, under the Brussels Treaty of 1948, the United Kingdom, France, and the Low CountriesBelgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourgconcluded a collective-defense agreement called the Western European Union. It was soon recognized, however, that a more formidable alliance would be required to provide an adequate military counterweight to the Soviets.

By this time Britain, Canada, and the United States had already engaged in secret exploratory talks on security arrangements that would serve as an alternative to the United Nations (UN), which was becoming paralyzed by the rapidly emerging Cold War. In March 1948, following a virtual communist coup dtat in Czechoslovakia in February, the three governments began discussions on a multilateral collective-defense scheme that would enhance Western security and promote democratic values. These discussions were eventually joined by France, the Low Countries, and Norway and in April 1949 resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty.

Spurred by the North Korean invasion of South Korea in June 1950, the United States took steps to demonstrate that it would resist any Soviet military expansion or pressures in Europe. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the leader of the Allied forces in western Europe in World War II, was named Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) by the North Atlantic Council (NATOs governing body) in December 1950. He was followed as SACEUR by a succession of American generals.

The North Atlantic Council, which was established soon after the treaty came into effect, is composed of ministerial representatives of the member states, who meet at least twice a year. At other times the council, chaired by the NATO secretary-general, remains in permanent session at the ambassadorial level. Just as the position of SACEUR has always been held by an American, the secretary-generalship has always been held by a European.

NATOs military organization encompasses a complete system of commands for possible wartime use. The Military Committee, consisting of representatives of the military chiefs of staff of the member states, subsumes two strategic commands: Allied Command Operations (ACO) and Allied Command Transformation (ACT). ACO is headed by the SACEUR and located at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Casteau, Belgium. ACT is headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia, U.S. During the alliances first 20 years, more than $3 billion worth of infrastructure for NATO forcesbases, airfields, pipelines, communications networks, depotswas jointly planned, financed, and built, with about one-third of the funding from the United States. NATO funding generally is not used for the procurement of military equipment, which is provided by the member statesthough the NATO Airborne Early Warning Force, a fleet of radar-bearing aircraft designed to protect against a surprise low-flying attack, was funded jointly.

A serious issue confronting NATO in the early and mid-1950s was the negotiation of West Germanys participation in the alliance. The prospect of a rearmed Germany was understandably greeted with widespread unease and hesitancy in western Europe, but the countrys strength had long been recognized as necessary to protect western Europe from a possible Soviet invasion. Accordingly, arrangements for West Germanys safe participation in the alliance were worked out as part of the Paris Agreements of October 1954, which ended the occupation of West German territory by the western Allies and provided for both the limitation of West German armaments and the countrys accession to the Brussels Treaty. In May 1955 West Germany joined NATO, which prompted the Soviet Union to form the Warsaw Pact alliance in central and eastern Europe the same year. The West Germans subsequently contributed many divisions and substantial air forces to the NATO alliance. By the time the Cold War ended, some 900,000 troopsnearly half of them from six countries (United States, Unite
d Kingdom, France, Belgium, Canada, and the Netherlands)were stationed in West Germany.

Frances relationship with NATO became strained after 1958, as President Charles de Gaulle increasingly criticized the organizations domination by the United States and the intrusion upon French sovereignty by NATOs many international staffs and activities. He argued that such integration subjected France to automatic war at the decision of foreigners. In July 1966 France formally withdrew from the military command structure of NATO and required NATO forces and headquarters to leave French soil; nevertheless, de Gaulle proclaimed continued French adherence to the North Atlantic Treaty in case of unprovoked aggression. After NATO moved its headquarters from Paris to Brussels, France maintained a liaison relationship with NATOs integrated military staffs, continued to sit in the council, and continued to maintain and deploy ground forces in West Germany, though it did so under new bilateral agreements with the West Germans rather than under NATO jurisdiction. In 2009 France rejoined the military command structure of NATO.

From its founding, NATOs primary purpose was to unify and strengthen the Western Allies military response to a possible invasion of western Europe by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. In the early 1950s NATO relied partly on the threat of massive nuclear retaliation from the United States to counter the Warsaw Pacts much larger ground forces. Beginning in 1957, this policy was supplemented by the deployment of American nuclear weapons in western European bases. NATO later adopted a flexible response strategy, which the United States interpreted to mean that a war in Europe did not have to escalate to an all-out nuclear exchange. Under this strategy, many Allied forces were equipped with American battlefield and theatre nuclear weapons under a dual-control (or dual-key) system, which allowed both the country hosting the weapons and the United States to veto their use. Britain retained control of its strategic nuclear arsenal but brought it within NATOs planning structures; Frances nuclear forces remained completely autonomous.

A conventional and nuclear stalemate between the two sides continued through the construction of the Berlin Wall in the early 1960s, dtente in the 1970s, and the resurgence of Cold War tensions in the 1980s after the Soviet Unions invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the election of U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1980. After 1985, however, far-reaching economic and political reforms introduced by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev fundamentally altered the status quo. In July 1989 Gorbachev announced that Moscow would no longer prop up communist governments in central and eastern Europe and thereby signaled his tacit acceptance of their replacement by freely elected (and noncommunist) administrations. Moscows abandonment of control over central and eastern Europe meant the dissipation of much of the military threat that the Warsaw Pact had formerly posed to western Europe, a fact that led some to question the need to retain NATO as a military organizationespecially after the Warsaw Pacts dissolution in 1991. The reunification of Germany in October 1990 and its retention of NATO membership created both a need and an opportunity for NATO to be transformed into a more political alliance devoted to maintaining international stability in Europe.

After the Cold War, NATO was reconceived as a cooperative-security organization whose mandate was to include two main objectives: to foster dialogue and cooperation with former adversaries in the Warsaw Pact and to manage conflicts in areas on the European periphery, such as the Balkans. In keeping with the first objective, NATO established the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (1991; later replaced by the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council) to provide a forum for the exchange of views on political and security issues, as well as the Partnership for Peace (PfP) program (1994) to enhance European security and stability through joint military training exercises with NATO and non-NATO states, including the former Soviet republics and allies. Special cooperative links were also set up with two PfP countries: Russia and Ukraine.

The second objective entailed NATOs first use of military force, when it entered the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995 by staging air strikes against Bosnian Serb positions around the capital city of Sarajevo. The subsequent Dayton Accords, which were initialed by representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, committed each state to respecting the others sovereignty and to settling disputes peacefully; it also laid the groundwork for stationing NATO peacekeeping troops in the region. A 60,000-strong Implementation Force (IFOR) was initially deployed, though a smaller contingent remained in Bosnia under a different name, the Stabilization Force (SFOR). In March 1999 NATO launched massive air strikes against Serbia in an attempt to force the Yugoslav government of Slobodan Miloevi to accede to diplomatic provisions designed to protect the predominantly Muslim Albanian population in the province of Kosovo. Under the terms of a negotiated settlement to the fighting, NATO deployed a peacekeeping force called the Kosovo Force (KFOR).

The crisis over Kosovo and the ensuing war gave renewed impetus to efforts by the European Union (EU) to construct a new crisis-intervention force, which would make the EU less dependent on NATO and U.S. military resources for conflict management. These efforts prompted significant debates about whether enhancing the EUs defensive capabilities would strengthen or weaken NATO. Simultaneously there was much discussion of the future of NATO in the post-Cold War era. Some observers argued that the alliance should be dissolved, noting that it was created to confront an enemy that no longer existed; others called for a broad expansion of NATO membership to include Russia. Most suggested alternative roles, including peacekeeping. By the start of the second decade of the 21st century, it appeared likely that the EU would not develop capabilities competitive with those of NATO or even seek to do so; as a result, earlier worries associated with the spectre of rivalry between the two Brussels-based organizations dissipated.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization: flag-raising ceremony, 1999NATO photosDuring the presidency of Bill Clinton (19932001), the United States led an initiative to enlarge NATO membership gradually to include some of the former Soviet allies. In the concurrent debate over enlargement, supporters of the initiative argued that NATO membership was the best way to begin the long process of integrating these states into regional political and economic institutions such as the EU. Some also feared future Russian aggression and suggested that NATO membership would guarantee freedom and security for the newly democratic regimes. Opponents pointed to the enormous cost of modernizing the military forces of new members; they also argued that enlargement, which Russia would regard as a provocation, would hinder democracy in that country and enhance the influence of hard-liners. Despite these disagreements, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined NATO in 1999; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia were admitted in 2004; and Albania and Croatia acceded to the alliance in 2009.

Meanwhile, by the beginning of the 21st century, Russia and NATO had formed a strategic relationship. No longer considered NATOs chief enemy, Russ
ia cemented a new cooperative bond with NATO in 2001 to address such common concerns as international terrorism, nuclear nonproliferation, and arms control. This bond was subsequently subject to fraying, however, in large part because of reasons associated with Russian domestic politics.

Events following the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 led to the forging of a new dynamic within the alliance, one that increasingly favoured the military engagement of members outside Europe, initially with a mission against Taliban forces in Afghanistan beginning in the summer of 2003 and subsequently with air operations against the regime of Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya in early 2011. As a result of the increased tempo of military operations undertaken by the alliance, the long-standing issue of burden sharing was revived, with some officials warning that failure to share the costs of NATO operations more equitably would lead to unraveling of the alliance. Most observers regarded that scenario as unlikely, however.

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